The downsides (enthusiastic newbies connecting up families with the scantest of evidence, or agin the evidence without a thought) are far far outweighed by the benefits of sharing.
Examples of both hit home strongly last night. (See next post for yesterday's example of the downside.)
For the huge plus side, my weekly Watch list email from FamilySearch highlighted that someone had added both a previously unknown child to the family of my 4x great grandparents Archibald Fairbain and Alison Crosser, and a baptism source for my 3x great grandfather Walter. (FamilySearch / WikiTree)
Which latter in particular is a bit embarrassing.
After all my research into Fairbairns you'd think I'd have gone back and rechecked my early work looking for the gaps that could now be filled.
There he is, baptized just across the border in Norham.
Which fits his 1841 census entry saying he was born in England, even if he did recant on that by 1851.
It's hardly an out of the way place for them to have been.
Courtesy of google we can see that it was 4 miles between Norham and Swinton where by the time the 1851 census came round Walter said he was born, having forgotten that 10 years earlier he'd said "England".
Unfortunately, there appear to only be the two baptisms there, no marriage for Archibald and Alison to fill that record gap, but also none for the presumed eldest son Archibald to contradict that he is the one baptized in Whitsome & Hilton, Berwickshire in 1783. :)
There seems to be only one other Fairbairn baptizing his children around this timeframe (1760 to 1800), a Thomas, with a William and an Ann.
Thank you to the person updating the Fairbairn tree that brought this to my attention.
Updates will ensue on WikiTree (done) and my Webpages
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